1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a linear compressor, in particular to a supporting structure of a resonance spring elastically supporting an operator of a linear motor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, a linear compressor is made by making a piston combine to a magnet assembly which is an operator of a linear motor as one body on the behalf of a crank shaft, it is described in FIG. 1.
As depicted in FIG. 1, the conventional linear compressor comprises a casing V where oil is filled, a compression unit installed horizontally inside of the casing V for compressing and discharging a coolant after sucking it, and an oil feeder O fixed on the outer of the compress unit C for providing the oil to the slide portion.
Hereinafter, the construction of the compress unit C comprising a supporting structure of a spring will now be described.
The compress unit C comprises a frame 1 having a ring shape, a cover 2 fixed on the side of the frame 1, a cylinder 3 fixed horizontally on the middle of the frame 1, an inner stator assembly 4A fixed on the inner circumference of the frame 1 supporting the cylinder 3, an outer stator assembly 4B installed fixedly on the outer circumference of the frame 1 so as to have a certain void from the outer circumference of the inner stator assembly 4A for forming induced magnetic with the inner stator assembly 4A, a magnet assembly 5 placed on the void between the inner stator assembly 4A and outer stator assembly 4B for performing a linear reciprocating motion, a piston 6 fixed on the magnet assembly 5 as one-body for compressing the coolant gas after sucking it while performing a sliding motion inside of the cylinder 3, and an inner resonance spring 7A and an outer resonance spring 7B for inducing the linear reciprocating motion of the magnet assembly 5 continually on the void between the inner stator assembly 4A and outer stator assembly 4B.
The inner and outer resonance spring 7A, 7B are compressed coil springs, the both ends of the inner resonance spring 7A are separately combined to the rear side surface of the frame 1 and inner side surface of the magnet assembly 5, and the both ends of the outer resonance spring 7B are separately combined to the outer side surface of the magnet assembly 5 and inner side surface of the cover corresponding to the outer side surface of the magnet assembly 5.
In addition, in the supporting structure of the inner side resonance spring 7A and outer side resonance spring 7B, each one high elasticity coil spring can be placed on the concentric, or at least three relative low elasticity coil springs can be placed on the same circumference so as to face each other with a certain interval.
A non-described reference numeral 5a is a magnet frame, 6a is a gas flow channel, 8 is an inlet valve, 9a is a discharge valve, 9b is a valve spring, 9c is a discharge cover, SP is an inlet pipe, and a DP is a discharge pipe.
The operation of the conventional linear compressor will now be described.
When the power is applied to the stator of the linear motor comprising the inner stator assembly 4A and outer stator assembly 4B and the induced magnetic is generated, the magnet assembly 5 as the operator placed between the stators performs the linear reciprocating motion by the induced magnetic, and the piston 6 performs the reciprocating motion of the inside of the cylinder 3.
While the piston 6 performs the reciprocating motion inside of the cylinder 3, the coolant gas flowed into the casing V is compressed inside of the cylinder 3, is discharged inside of the discharge cover 9c by pushing the discharge valve 9a of a discharge valve assembly 9, and is discharged through the discharge pipe DP. The described process is performed repeatedly.
Herein, when the magnet assembly 5 performs the linear motion horizontally by the induced magnetic between the inner stator assembly 4A and outer stator assembly 4B, the inner resonance spring 7A and outer resonance spring 7B are compressed and are stretched to the opposite direction each other, according to this the magnet assembly 5 and piston 6 perform the reciprocating motion.
However, in the spring supporting structure of the conventional linear compressor, as depicted in FIGS. 2A and 2B, because the inner resonance spring and outer resonance spring are placed on the same axial line on both sides of the magnet frame placed between them, as depicted in FIG. 3, the horizontal length of the spring supporting structure of the compressor is overall length L adding the length of the inner resonance spring L1 and length of the outer resonance spring L2, accordingly the overall horizontal length of the compressor is lengthened.
The object of the present invention is to provide a spring supporting structure of a linear compressor which is capable of reducing the horizontal direction length of the compressor by improving the defect of the conventional spring supporting structure of the linear compressor.
In order to achieve the object, the spring supporting structure of the linear compressor of the present invention comprises a frame elastically installed inside of a casing, a magnet assembly placed between an inner stator assembly and an outer stator assembly fixedly installed on the frame, and an inner resonance spring and an outer resonance spring having the phase difference separately which are placed so as to cross each other with a certain interval to the cylindrical direction vertical to the center line of the inner/outer spring supporters combined to the side of the magnet assembly and overlap some part of the elastic region of the inner resonance spring with the elastic region of the adjacent outer resonance spring.